The Fall and Rise of Avery Johnson
by carapoop
Summary: This is a "what if" story that tracks the path of Sgt. Avery Johnson through the course of the Insurrection in a world where the Covenant doesn't exist. The first two chapters are fairly short but the later ones do get a bit longer. Comments and criticism of any kind are very much welcome. Enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

**January 1st, 2526: **

Avery Johnson woke up on the floor, reeking of Harvest corn whiskey and vomit. Blinking away a painful but familiar head ache, he belly-crawled into the bathroom and threw up in the toilet. Once his body expelled most of last night's liquor he felt capable of standing. He avoided the mirror as he shuffled out of the small bathroom; he didn't need to see it to know he looked terrible.

A heavy sigh escaped his lips as he sat on the edge of his bed. As he predicted when he had been shipped here, there were no Innies on Harvest. The only enemy he had on-world was Byrne, and he was one Johnson couldn't kill. Not unless he wanted to end up in front of a firing squad. But then, maybe he did. It might just beat being stuck out here, training idiot farm boys and catching cold glares from Byrne. Why couldn't they have just left him in Chicago? He could have drunk himself into oblivion. Instead that bitch al-Cygni had dragged him out of the hole in the wall he'd been hoping to die in and all the way out here, to the middle of nowhere, so he could stop some Innie raiders from robbing grain transports.

That was nearly a year ago. After Johnson and Byrne repelled a raider and killed its crew, the system fell back into silence. Freighters came and went, JOTUN machines worked the land, grain rode up the elevator and off to hundreds of hungry worlds. He and Byrne were tasked with raising a militia to fight the non-existent Innie threat. It was a bullshit posting, meant to get him out of the way. After what happened on Tribute, the brass wasn't going to send him anywhere near the front lines.

It was just as well. He had no fight in him anymore. He barely had any _life_ in him anymore. Mostly he was full of cheap food and cheaper booze. It didn't make him happy, but it helped him forget. That was good enough.

Johnson dressed slowly, like a man in pain. There was no real point in showing up to the day's training; he wasn't fit to walk a dog, let alone train soldiers. Still, he needed to show his face if he wanted to draw his paycheck. Might as well half-ass some paperwork before going back to the bar. He reached for his sidearm, which sat on his bedside table next to a nearly-finished bottle of Harvest Gold. For a brief moment he imagined holding the gun to his head and squeezing. The thought passed so quickly he could almost kid himself that it hadn't existed at all.

"Happy fucking New Year", croaked Johnson to the empty room. He polished off the whiskey and stumbled out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**June 23, 2528:**

For the last three days every conversation in Utgard was about Mars. Johnson did not have many conversations anymore, but he couldn't avoid overhearing the talk when he spent all his time at the pub. And even if he found an empty corner, the screens blared on and on about the attack. It _was_ big news, after all. Still, when he got drunk enough he could tune it out.

He wasn't drunk enough.

Johnson's shot glass slammed down on the table for the eleventh time that night. Before the fire faded from his throat he poured himself another. Johann's Pub was fairly crowded for a Wednesday night, but the conversations were hushed and somber. The war was past the point of no return now. Everyone on Harvest felt that, whether they supported the Insurrection or not. Things were going to get a lot worse before they got better, even out here. Johnson could feel the gravity of that realization weighing the city down.

_"10 million dead in New Pari... ...tizens concerned for their safety... ...dreds of thousands took to the streets of __Sydney__ in prote... ...can the Insurrection be stopped?"_

_Not until they get what they want_, thought Johnson. _Give them their god damn planets and they'll go home. Unless you want to keep mopping up your own blood._ He smirked as the image of a HIGHCOM officer trying to wipe the streets clean with a worn-out mop played through his mind.

The smile faded a moment later. There would be a lot more blood spilled before any peace took hold. That was a fact. The question then became: how much? At what point did all this destruction and killing become worse than the conditions that started it? He knew the conflict had long since stopped being about people; it was an abstract battle now, freedom and individuality pitted against order and security. Both sets of ideals lived within Johnson, probably within most people. The irony was that the war had sapped all of those notions from daily life; Mars was the last straw. Now everyone picked a side, everyone watched the skies, everyone could be an enemy. Every day could be your last. That last thought gave Johnson a comfort he wished he didn't feel.

A shudder ran up his spine, and Johnson ended the war the only way he knew how. He took another shot.

_"...iral Margaret Parangosky announced today that ONI would begin new initiatives "to root out and destroy Insurrectionist leadership within the year". When pressed for details, she decl..."_

He passed out at the bar again.


	3. Chapter 3

**August 7, 2530:**

Yvette's Pourhouse was dark and empty, save the lone shadow slouched in a corner booth. There were no more conversations in the bar, or in any other on Harvest; only silence punctuated by sharp peels of thunder. Another deep boom sounded outside, followed closely by the sound of rattling glass. The sudden, muted _POP_ of a bottle breaking behind the bar marked the end of the cacophony, and silence settled like dust.

The man in the corner booth took a swig from a cheap bottle.

Whiskey no longer tasted like anything to Johnson. Oddly enough, when he vomited he often caught a brief glimpse of its flavor, and it repulsed him. It was better that he was numb to the taste. He couldn't afford the good stuff anyway, not since he was discharged. So he whittled away his meager savings on cheap swill, hoping it would last him to the end. The day had finally come, and he still held a bottle in his hand. He made it.

Another thunderclap rang through the air, much louder than the last. The windows on the east wall of the bar exploded inwards in a spray of fragmented glass. Gunshots and screams could be heard now, from the same direction as the explosion. Johnson sat up a bit straighter. He polished off his whiskey and dropped the bottle onto the booth, then pulled out his M6F and laid it on the table. The only relic of his past life.

_Soon_.

The destruction of New Paris fundamentally changed the course of the Insurrection. After that day Johnson knew it was only a matter of time before the war came back to Harvest. The Innies had stung the UNSC where it hurt; in turn, the UNSC vowed to flush out the hive.

About six months after the nuclear attack on Mars and Parangosky's foreboding proclamation, Insurrectionist leaders started dropping like flies. Johnson still remembered the first: Staffan Sentzke, a high-profile Innie commander, disappeared from his corvette _The Hand That Feeds_ in orbit above Venezia. Every single crew member aboard the ship was found dead, either asphyxiated or killed with their own weapons. All of the ship's magazines had been jettisoned, and its slipspace drive sabotaged. When an Innie boarding party tried to access the ship's network and figure out what happened, the reactor overloaded and wiped out _The Hand_ along with everyone on it.

Officially, none of this was true. These reports were just rumors that slipped from the mouths of Innie grunts and found their way to Harvest. On the news, Parangosky announced simply that ONI had neutralized Sentzke in an undisclosed location and planned to continue hunting the rebel leadership until they surrendered their cause. Within a year of that announcement, 103 high-ranking Insurrectionist leaders had been assassinated, though almost none of the bodies were recovered. Many of them were taken from Innie strongholds, and word began to spread on both sides of the war. Some said that ONI had discovered a way to make a person invisible. Others claimed they were teleporting spooks right into the bedrooms of their targets while they slept. There were whispers about AI-controlled hunter-killer robots, shapeshifters, and super soldiers. A common joke spread that ONI was simply hiring back the ghosts of dead agents at half pay.

Johnson knew which whispers to believe. They had done their best to turn him into one of those ghosts, but it hadn't quite worked. He shuddered at thought that they had finally succeeded.

The next explosion was so close that the eastern wall of the bar collapsed inward, showering Johnson with small bits of wood and steel. He checked his pistol one more time and tried to focus. He wished he had another bottle.

ONI's new methods proved highly effective, and put the Innies on the run. Unable to effectively lead the war while simultaneously defending themselves from capture, the Insurrectionist leadership made the risky decision to decentralize their military efforts. Some planetside garrisons were maintained to hold core sympathetic worlds, but the ragtag Innie fleet spread out across the stars with the goal of picking off the most vulnerable of UNSC outposts. The push toward Earth had required monumental coordination and leadership, and ONI was preying on that. The Innies decided to turn outward, and soon undefended backwater worlds started receiving visits from marauding freighters and frigates whose only orders were to find the holdouts of the UNSC in the Outer Colonies and destroy them.

Today they had found Harvest, and Johnson couldn't have been happier.

He saw a militiaman run past the bar, unarmed and bleeding. It looked like Healy but he couldn't really tell, nor did he care. Officially, Johnson had been discharged only 11 months ago, but it had been years since he'd spoken to any of the militia. They were rightfully repulsed by the sad drunk that occasionally stumbled into their barracks and pretended to be the soldier he once was.

Another soldier appeared outside the bar, walking backwards and firing her weapon. She wore a Marine's uniform; the UNSC had wisely decided to supplement Harvest's defense in the last few weeks, though clearly it was too little too late. Her magazine must have emptied because she reached down for a fresh one. He watched as she caught a bullet in her left shoulder while reloading. She pulled out her sidearm, but was shot dead before she could squeeze off another shot. Now was his chance.

He walked toward the ruined wall, took a deep breath, and looked around the corner. His vision was blurry; he was sure it was the booze but didn't admit it to himself. He saw three armed men wearing brown fatigues walking towards Yvette's. They were about 30 meters away. Johnson stepped out from behind the wall and took aim. He fired at the lead trooper, missing wildly. His second and third shots also failed to connect. He was far more drunk than he realized.

Before he could fire a fourth shot, he felt an intense heat in his right thigh. He tried to look down at it, only to realize he was on his back. He squeezed the trigger again but his gun was no longer in his hand. Every part of his body was numb.

Slowly he became aware of himself again. His mouth tasted like dirt and vomit. He could smell sour piss, and realized far in the back of his mind that it was his own. Far away, he heard himself laugh. Something blocked the sunlight, then, silence.


	4. Chapter 4

**February 27, 2532:**

It had been years since he was last on Reach. The atmosphere still smelled like he remembered, sweeter than Earth's air with notes of turpentine and mold. Some found it revolting, but to him it was like home. He sucked it deep into his lungs and savored it.

_I'm not happy about it, Jacob, but don't for one second sit there and tell me I can't be proud of them._

He took a quick look through the scope of his sniper rifle. The road was still deserted. He already knew that it would be, but he was very excited and more than a little nervous. Getting here had been dangerous and difficult.

_The Insurrection is breaking. We took back __two__ worlds in the last month alone. __A few more years and they'll be completely declawed. __Don't tell me they're not working._

Almost 40 days ago a civilian transport had dropped Johnson on Reach. He arrived with nothing but 2000 credits and a small piece of paper with two sets of coordinates written on it. One to meet his contact and pick up his rifle, and the other to lead him here.

_ People can say what they will. I know the truth. So do you. But the rest of them? They're just talking._

The 35 days between picking up the gun and arriving at this sunny hilltop would have killed most men. Hell, Johnson himself couldn't have done it three years ago. Reach was an unforgiving world, covered in steep mountains separated by dense forests, and he had been through some of its roughest terrain. But he was strong now, and determined. His mind was clear; his life had purpose. Today, there was a mission to complete.

_And what would you have had me do?! The work was right there, right in front of me. I saw it immediately. The problem, and the solution. It was my only choice!_

He chewed the soggy remains of a cheap cigar and considered how strange it was, to be here like this. Only two years ago he had been sure he would die in some filthy bar on Harvest, just another drunk buried far from his home. He even remembered looking forward to the day he passed out in an Utgard alley and never woke up. Those were painful times, his mind caught in a loop, always bouncing back and forth between guilt at what he'd done and shame at what he'd failed to do.

_Those children were our only answer! Their lives against billions... How can you sit there and condemn me?!_

Those thoughts did not crowd his mind anymore. Boss made it so clear to Johnson. The UNSC had used him, put him into impossible situations and then let all the guilt and blame and anger fall on him when they inevitably went to shit. They had turned his body into a cold killing machine but left him with the mind of a man. The stress of such a dual existence, Boss told him, drove him over the edge.

_You and the rest of this pathetic species! This project brought us back from the brink, you know that better than anyone._

Boss knew quite a bit about what the UNSC had been up to since Johnson's stint with the ORION project. Apparently they'd gotten over the hurdle of conscience, turned ordinary humans into something Johnson and his fellow operators had failed to become. The ghosts were real now. All thanks to one person, one mind.

_They know it too. That's why we're going back out. We can widen the pool this time. A lot has changed in the last seven years. And we don't even need as many._

The Innies treated Johnson well after his attempted suicide-by-combat on Harvest. The first thing he remembered after blacking out was waking up in the light gravity of a ship's medical bay. His captors helped him recover from his wounds and overcome the wracking pain of alcohol withdrawals. Then, one day, Boss came in and told him everything. He gave Johnson a simple choice: go back to your old life, or help the Insurrection mete out justice for the crimes against humanity ONI and the UNSC had committed. The decision was easy.

_I'll stop when this war is over. You're letting petty sentimentality cloud your thinking. You're a soldier, when did you get so squeamish?_

Far in the distance, a small black truck came into view. Adrenaline flushed his cheeks and let butterflies loose in his stomach. It was finally show time. Johnson checked his weapon for the hundredth time and sighted the targets. In a few seconds they would be in the kill zone, and then he could finally end his month-long stay on Reach.

_Fine, don't come with me. They'll assign me another ship. But don't act like your hands are clean. If this disgusts you so much, you could stop it. You could kill me right now._

The mark was visibly upset. Her eyes were red, her cheeks were wet, her hands gesticulated wildly as she spoke to her driver. The computer in his rifle's optics managed, after a few seconds, to confirm her identity despite her movement and disheveled appearance. It had no trouble with her driver; his broad face was stony as he endured his companion's tirade, his eyes locked on the road ahead.

Only a few more seconds now.

_You all act like you're innocent, like you wish I'd never done it. You're all god damn hypocr-_

Time to head home.


	5. Chapter 5

**November 17, 2533:**

The cloak hung low over Johnson's eyes as he pushed through the crowded public spaceport toward the distant landing pad. The soldiers standing around it were alert but not tense; this world was, after all, technically sympathetic to the UEG. Besides, they didn't want to look like they were doing anything important. The best way to hide something, Boss told him, is to pretend you aren't hiding anything at all.

There were ten Marines on the ground, with probably another twenty in the approaching Pelican. They were dressed like second-rate Colonial Militia grunts, but Boss said they were ODSTs. He could see now that it was true. They stood a little straighter, maintained a proper perimeter around the landing zone. The Pelican would arrive in the next minute.

He was 100 meters away.

The last two years were most grueling, backbreaking time of Johnson's life. He trained hard, every single day, with five of the worst human beings he ever had the displeasure of meeting. He'd killed many men, almost as many as he did for the other side back in his last life. Boss and the Innie trainers had taken a broken warrior and reshaped him into a sword, a scalpel, a laser whose precision was rivaled only by its lethality.

He _knew_ that it was all for a purpose. His was a journey that started the day he ended that woman on Reach. It would end the day he freed the last of her ghosts, her abominations. They were an affront, stripped of their humanity so they could save the rest of us. The hypocrisy was clearly lost on the UNSC, but he saw it clear as day.

Johnson had almost had it happen to him once, but they had failed to transform him into a completely cooperative tool. His humanity had been a barrier that they could not overcome, not then at least. He was still pure, a human killing machine.

"The UNSC are cowards. They fight us with children whose bodies are fused with machine. We will show them, _you_ will show them, that the Insurrection is human, _wholly_ human, and we will not be intimidated by mutilated slaves. The very existence of these things reaffirms the necessity of this rebellion. Tomorrow, you will earn the right to become the Sword of the Insurrection, or you will die."

His boss told him that, right before the mission. Those words hung in his head when his shuttle left _The Fork in the Road_, and stayed with him all through his sleepless night. This was his last test. Soon Johnson would get to kill the ghosts themselves, as long as he succeeded today.

The target area was about 50 meters away now. It was a clear, cloudless day, and the spaceport bustled with the urgency of a thousand people with places to be. There was only one way out for him. It would land in 12 seconds.

Something lurched up inside him. _Don't do this! He's lying, they're all lying! You're no different than-_

He buried that thought deep within his mind. It wouldn't help him with the task at hand. He was 20 meters out, then 15. He waited at that safe distance for the Pelican to land. As it did, with its troop bay facing him, the nearest Marine turned around to greet the ship. His moment had come.

Johnson was kicking the closest Marine in the back of her neck before her mind even registered what was happening. Before he even heard the raspy gurgle of her last breath, he had a forearm in his hands and snapped it like a twig. Two jagged, glistening bones protruded from the brown flesh he held, and without thinking he ripped the man's hand off and drove the bones through the left eye of a third Marine who had the foolish audacity to punch Johnson in the back of the head rather than gun him down.

Though the dead soldiers provided Johnson with three full weapons, he didn't pick any of them up. This test had its rules, and he knew them. There was only one way to pass.

The seven remaining soldiers were circling around the ship now to get a clear shot. They would have one within seconds. Instinct threw him into the troop bay with the landing party. The next 15 seconds were a kaleidoscope of blood, screams, and gunfire. After that he couldn't remember anything.

_"Terror today as three squads of Marines were killed by an unarmed and as-yet unidentified man in the Alltroph spaceport on Boundary. Security footage was conspicuously sabotaged, but eye-witness reports tell of an incredibly muscular man killing dozens of Marines in hand-to-hand combat. All accounts indicate that he acted alone in this attack. The assailant then hijacked a Pelican and escaped without pursuit. ONI has blamed the attack on the Insurrection but no claim has been released yet..."_

When he woke up, he was back on the _Fork_, in his bunk, alone. Sitting up, his body flared into a familiar but comfortable pain, the sign of a successful mission. His room was bare except for a small piece of paper sitting on his bedside table; a smile spread across his broken lips even before he opened it.

"You passed."


	6. Chapter 6

**January 19, 2534:**

_taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap_

Johnson was excited. And nervous. And, surprisingly, scared. He hadn't felt _that_ in years, and he welcomed the long lost emotion with glee.

_ I feel like I'm on a blind date_, he thought to himself as his restless fingers rapped on the metal tabeltop. In a lot of ways, he _was_ on a blind date. He had never met the person he was waiting for, had never even seen their face before. He didn't even know if it was a man or a woman. That didn't concern him, though. That wasn't why he was nervous.

_taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap_

Johnson was nervous because he knew _what_ he was meeting.

He had crossed paths with a lot of nasty motherfuckers in his years with NavSpecWar. His fellow ORION operators had somehow surpassed them. But the ghost coming for him was something far beyond any of Johnson's former comrades.

Boss made sure Johnson knew that. They spent hours together reviewing the ghosts' kidnappings and attacks, trying to tease apart their strengths and weaknesses. After months of obsessing, they determined that weakness was not a word easily applied to these foes. It was _this_ realization that had been the key for them: the ghosts feared no human. Their strength was their weakness. The Innies had never bagged a ghost, _no one_ had ever bagged a ghost, and Boss decided they would play that fact to their advantage.

So here was Johnson. Whatever was coming for him, it expected to find a crown. It didn't know that a sword was waiting.

_taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap_

Boss was a very smart man. Johnson did not know his name; he didn't know anyone that did. What he _did_ know was that the Insurrection had a problem, and Boss knew the solution. Boss had been the one to reveal the truth about the ghosts, that they were kidnapped children forced into a life of combat and servitude for the UNSC. He had known the location of Johnson's mark on Reach, and her importance. And he knew who the ghost thought it was capturing today, though that had required the results of Johnson's test on Boundary.

Boss knew a lot about how the ghosts had been made, too. This he never told Johnson, but he overheard it while Boss and some officers had been watching him spar. Johnson heard their conversation from almost 100 meters away; his hearing had improved over the last few months. So had his reflexes, his vision, and his strength. ORION had made him strong, but this was different. The voice deep in the back of his mind thought it felt too familiar, but he worked to keep those thoughts buried. He was different. This was the result of training, dedication, focus. Johnson was almost sure of it.

_taptaptaptaptaptaptapta-_

Gunshots now, and screams. His date was here.

"We need you to take extra care to protect its shell," Boss had told him. "The shell is very important. The body we can understand even if it looks nothing like a person, but the shell _has_ to be in one piece. We can't figure out how to beat them without it. Do you understand me, Avery?"

The only weapons Johnson had were two blades, strapped across his chestplate. _Most men in my position would use these on themselves,_ he thought with grim satisfaction.

Johnson had always been a thick, muscular man, but he was downright massive now. He weighed 326 pounds, all of it muscle. He'd been so damn _hungry_ these last few months, and they just kept feeding him. At first he worried that his increased size would affect his finesse, but his added strength made him quicker and quieter than ever.

_There is only one explanation and you kno-_

The disruptive thought fell silent as the door began to shake and then bend outward. It was eight centimeters of Titanium-A. Johnson stood and squarely faced the door, a drawn blade in his left hand.

Time slowed. One blink lasted a year. He spent a decade exhaling.

The door flexed heavily and then flew outward. A taser's electrode shot through the threshold and planted itself in Johnson's custom chest plate. He pressed a button on his hip and sent four amps of current back through the cable.

Johnson sprinted toward the temporarily stunned ghost in an intentionally reckless attack. An MA5B rose to meet him. He heard its inner mechanisms beginning to work just as he smacked it out of the way with his right hand. An instant later his head was ringing from a lightning-fast punch to the left side of his face. Johnson spun to the right, acting much more hurt than he was.

This was his chance. He stumbled away from the ghost, trying to draw another strike.

It worked. The ghost's right hand approached Johnson's already-shattered jaw in slow motion. He waited until the last possible instant, then leaned back from the strike with alarming quickness, grabbed the ghost's wrist with his right hand and pulled it across his chest, using the punch's momentum to pull the ghost off balance and spin it around. The back of the ghost's neck was exposed; this was his only chance. Johnson's left hand plunged a blade deep through the black undersuit into the base of the skull, between the helmet and back plate, then tilted the blade up.

He spent an hour pinned under the heaped shell. It was the most comfortable bed in the world.

The fight lasted six seconds.


	7. Chapter 7

**March 15, 2539:**

_ John wished, more than anything, that he could be the one to do it. His family, his entire family, was dead because of that man. And he was here, and that man was very far away._

Mac was bored. Sergeant Helms told him this morning that they would be escorting the Colonel to New Tyne for a meeting. Mac had done this job a million times before, for the Colonel and every other officer that came to Venezia. It helped that the drive was beautiful, following a wide and fast river with rocky banks that led to the feet of hills laden with dense yellow-green foliage. The road hugged the bases of the hills, occasionally riding the edge of a sharp drop.

But beauty has a way of dulling after 500 repetitions, so Mac was bored and he was stuck with that.

_He knew he needed to be here, on Venezia. It was the only way to bring the bastard down. If John wasn't here then that traitor might figure out that ONI knew this was a feint. The spooks could only nab him when he thought he was safe. Hopefully John's flashy solo orbital entrance three days ago reassured the Innies that ONI thought their target was here, not en route to Charybdis IX._

Something big moving inside the main gate caught his attention. He stopped leaning on the truck and stood up straight.

"It can't be."

It- no, _he_ was nearly seven feet tall.

His armor was a deep red. In many places it was much darker, nearly black, like the color of dried blood; as the behemoth got closer to Mac, he realized that these were dents and burn scars. The visor on his helmet was a sickly, reflective yellow. The ground shuddered with every step of his heavy armored boots. There were multiple large blades stuck across his armor, and a battle rifle in his hands.

Mac was terrified.

_He wasn't looking forward to the fight he faced. This monstrosity was the most dangerous combatant in the Insurrection. Still, John was deeply sure that he would complete his mission and survive._

_They had all been._

Mac attempted a salute as the crimson-clad man approached, but the result was only an awkward stumble back as the massive cyborg entered the passenger seat of a truck.

His truck. Shit. Mac swore to dig into Helms when he got back for lying about his passenger, rank be damned.

_ John knew the sword was not responsible for the lives it took. No sword was. The mission to eliminate the real culprit was already well underway; he had to trust in that. A whole battlegroup had been sent to Charybdis, there was no way that traitor would escape alive. His only concern now was eliminating his bastard brother. _

Mac snapped out of his stupor and scrambled into the truck. "H-hi, sir," he managed to stammer. "New Tyne spaceport?"

Johnson nodded. Mac clumsily started the truck, his hands shaking as he pushed the ignition. They rolled forward, preceded and flanked by two fancy new M12 Warthogs, stolen only weeks earlier from an unfortunate platoon of UNSC Army troopers guarding a depot on New Carthage.

_ Show time. He hated this; it felt almost scripted. He knew it was._

The adrenaline coursing through Mac's body lent the familiar sensations of Venezia a newfound vividness. He was freshly aware of the mellow forest canopy blanketing the countryside, of the bright blue wildflowers that traced the road, of every bump in the aging asphalt surface. He could smell Venezia's slightly bitter air again, though he had long since grown accustomed to its unique odor.

The awareness of his passenger's identity was almost too much for him to handle. Mac knew the stories about Johnson, often referred to as the Sword of the Insurrection. The man sitting mere inches to his right had single-handedly turned the tide of the war. Hundreds, if not thousands, of UNSC soldiers died with his cold metal visage as their last sight. The man was a legend, and now Mac had to safely transport him to the spaceport. He adjusted his grip on the wheel as his palms slicked with sweat.

By the time they found the main highway and were winding along, with the river on their left, Mac calmed down a bit. Johnson did not say a word, which helped Mac focus. He could concentrate on his job and nothing else. Nonetheless as his mind caught hold of itself he began to wonder about his passenger's destination. Maybe the Sword was going to kill another ONI ghost. Or hijack a UNSC destroyer. One day Mac would be able to tell his children that he had personally escorted the Sword on his way to a very important mission. A small smile spread across his lips as he imagined bragging about this trip in the bar tonight. His anger toward Helms quickly became gratitude.

Mac's daydreams were abruptly cut short by a clap of thunder. The lead Warthog vanished in a ball of flame, snapping Mac from his reverie and sending a fresh surge of adrenaline through him. As the burning hulk crashed down to the road in front of them Mac cut the wheel hard to the right and narrowly avoided the wreck. Panicking, he let his foot off the accelerator for a split second before Johnson barked a harsh "Go!" at him. The trailing M12 flew past them on their left, the gunner firing blindly across the river. Mac hung back and to their right, trying to keep the hog between his truck and their assailant.

His instinct proved correct when, a moment later, another explosion under the second Warthog sent it flying off the pavement. His strained reflexes failed him, and he cut the wheel too hard this time. The truck careened off the road toward the river, and Mac's vision became a spiral of greens and blues as they flipped down the hillside toward the water.

When the truck finally settled, Mac tried to stand only to realize that he could no longer feel his legs. Blood began to fill his mouth. The last thing he saw was Johnson bound across the river and up the steep bank on the other side.

_Just me and him now._


	8. Chapter 8

**March 15, 2539:**

Johnson was across the river ten seconds after the first rocket explosion. His battle rifle shouldered, he made his way through the woods towards the base of some cliffs. The contrails of the rockets made it abundantly clear where his attacker was positioned. It was convenient; he was being invited to a fight. His quarry was further up the hill beyond the cliffs, taking a higher position. It was time to face the last ghost. Johnson was sure he would come out on top one last time.

_ or just let him kill you out no one will know_

His problem was that he was _too_ sure of himself. He craved the fight. He _needed_ to hunt the ghosts. After Harvest, it was all he had left in his life. It was his life. And he was good at it.

But when had he become so good at it? Why? Why was he fighting these people, _with_ the Insurrection?

_ he tricked you he played you how can you be so stupid_

It spoke again, catching his attention. That nagging in his brain. Words too quiet to hear. Nearly a voice. Like listening to a radio turned down too low, or overhearing whispers in another room.

But he knew what it was saying.

Johnson had felt it creep up in him, slowly, after Boss had _really_ started training him. For years he told himself that his strength, his agility, his reflexes were the result of this training and his sobriety. But someone else had an opinion on the matter. A man that had been through this process before; a man he once believed had died on Harvest, drunk and alone. Apparently he had survived. And Johnson couldn't shut him up.

He reached the base of the cliff and clamped his battle rifle onto his back. The face was 20 meters high. Johnson crouched low and leaped 15 meters. He grabbed a small outcropping with armored fingertips and propelled himself to the top. He was re-armed and gone without a sound.

Deep down he knew he'd been fucked over. Taken advantage of. He wasn't stupid. It was the truth.

_ of course it is it has been from the day they took you_

But only deep down. He knew other truths. One of them was that the UNSC had created monsters out of children and turned them loose on the Insurrection. Johnson had freed those children, one by one, and saved thousands in the process. The war would end soon.

_ you're one of the monsters_

He heard his foe. The king ghost was doubling back, finally, for the fight. Johnson knew he would.

The two had fought before. Twice. Both times Johnson had claimed a ghost. Once, he'd almost died himself. He knew this man was more dangerous than himself. It would be an interesting battle.

Johnson found himself at the top of the hill, in a large grove of thin, tall trees. He had the illusion of being able to see for quite a distance around him. It made him feel naked and exposed. He listened.

_ just sit down and end this for us_

Reaching down with his left arm, Johnson plucked a grenade from his thigh. His thumb hovered over the button. Behind him a half-ton man took a loud step.

He turned, armed the grenade and threw it. As his arm released the explosive he caught three rounds hard in his chest plate. A fourth glanced off the side of his helmet.

Bells rung in his head even as he rolled out of the line of fire. His heart hurt. Someone had pissed in his suit.

He was up.

_ stay down_

30 meters away the grenade exploded and Johnson took off toward the falling debris. The ghost was scrambled to his feet and turned his weapon toward Johnson. He had to close the gap. He leaped.

Another round punched him, this time in the shoulder. He kept flying through the air and hit the ghost hard in a full-body tackle. The intertwined pair rolled down the hill back toward the river, snapping the thin trees like match sticks. They separated. Johnson crashed onto a log and bounced up, skipping down the hill. He tucked, twisted, kicked, and planted.

Johnson had fallen all the way back to the cliffs. He was facing the hill, scanning it. He didn't see the ghost. Few ever did.

He turned around in time to catch the ghost's right arm with his left. The blade was practically leaping at Johnson's throat, but now he had the ghost's right wrist. He pulled hard on it, taking the ghost off his balance long enough for Johnson to push away. He was grabbed a blade from his armor and pounced. The two rolled along the edge of the cliff, each struggling to gain an edge over the other. Johnson maneuvered on top of his foe, stabbed his right arm toward the ghost's throat, caught a knee to the groin, flipped over the ghost and onto his back. He rolled out of the way just as a fusion-powered boot slammed into the dirt. He pivoted, still on the ground, and swept out the ghost, but his leg hit nothing.

They stood facing each other, five meters apart. Johnson unsheathed a second blade. No one moved.

In that instant Johnson knew the truth, like he once had back on Harvest a lifetime ago. His own reflection faced him, and he hated it. He wanted to _kill_ it, he wanted to choke the life from the ghost's augmented body until it was still.

He had become his worst enemy.

But that was nothing new; Johnson had always been his own greatest foe. From the day he joined the Corps. The day he volunteered for ORION. The day at the Jim Dandy. The day he agreed to work for Boss. The day he put on this filthy shell and completed the hypocrisy he'd been trying to deny since Boss picked him up as a pet project, built for revenge.

Most of his life had been spent fighting for others instead of himself. He'd been broken on Harvest, destroyed, but at least he'd been honest. Boss told him it was part of the plan, that he had a _purpose_. But it was a lie. He'd been used.

Boss didn't feel bad for the ghosts. He hated them. Hated their perfection, their lethality. He hated their mother, too. Perhaps most of all. So he had taken a broken man and, from the remains, built his own monster. He turned Johnson into an abomination, a twisted, vengeful simulacrum of the people he was built to kill. He was the distorted reflection of the perfect soldier. He was a response, a reaction, a big "fuck you" to people he didn't even know. He was done with it.

It was time to retire.

Johnson smiled. It had been years since he'd smiled. He almost laughed.

He dove forward and made it look good. Made it look close. But he knew, and the ghost knew. They'd both done the dance too many times before; it was easy now to spot a faker.

Johnson didn't care. His throat felt warm, his lips were wet, and then, he finally slept.


	9. Epilogue

_Breaking story tonight - rogue UNSC Army Colonel James Ackerson was assassinated yesterday in a massive operation undertaken by Naval forces above Charybdis IX. Ackerson is widely known as the force behind the resurgence of the Insurrection, and the creator of the so-called 'Sword of the Insurrection', a genetically-modified super-soldier that has terrorized UNSC worlds for nearly a decade. Ackerson disappeared from UNSC-controlled space in November of 2530. The official reason for his defection is classified, though many believe that disagreements with ONI caused a rift between Ackerson and the..._

Parangosky switched off the screen and turned her chair around. She faced a tall, graying man. He was bruised. His lips were swollen and cracked. Handcuffs and ankle restraints prevented his escape, not that he would try. Two massive armored troopers breathed down his neck.

"Uncuff him," she said, and they did.

"Leave."

"James, take a seat. No need to be so serious. You've been away for a very long time, and you've done a lot since you left."

He continued to stand, and said nothing. Parangosky thought she detected fear on his face, mixed with anger. Like a cornered animal, waiting for its last fight.

"You've got me all wrong, James. You're not in trouble. I'm impressed. _We're_ impressed. I don't know how you did it, with a full-grown man, but you did. _Halsey_ couldn't even make that happen. Now sit, please. We need to discuss your future."

Slowly, he sat. They finally listened.


End file.
